You know to fertilize your lawn, your vegetable garden, your flower, but — your trees? Don’t those take care of themselves? You may be wondering, does tree fertilizer work? What does it do and when do you use it?
Don’t trees fertilize themselves? Well, sort of. In the wild, healthy trees should get all the nutrients they need from the soil. In urban environments, trees need a little more help to stay healthy.
Luckily, assuming you’re reading this in early spring, now is the perfect time to fertilize your trees, shrubs, and hedges!
Restore nutrients in urban environment
In natural environments, fallen leaves and other plants decay on the forest floor, returning nitrogen to the soil. This helps trees keep the right balance of nutrients. But in the city, trees often grow independently or with only one or two other trees or shrubs close by. We rake away dead leaves, clear up garden plants past their prime, and mow lawns.
This means trees don’t get all those good nutrients from decaying plants. Not only that, but city life is hard on trees! Roads, car exhaust, smog, salt and ice melters, and cramped quarters can all do a number on trees. Fertilizer helps balance out the soil and restore those key nutrients to a tree or shrub.
Grass growing underneath trees can also suck away nutrients the tree may otherwise have taken in. Trees on urban lawns can benefit from the extra boost.
Promote new growth
In spring, your tree or hedge is getting ready for its prime growing season in summer. Fertilizing in spring helps give your trees a boost before the season. By adding in the extra nutrients from fertilizing, you set your tree up for success.
Proper fertilizing helps your tree create more chlorophyll, which stimulates leaf and branch growth. Especially for younger trees, spring fertilizer contributes to a healthy canopy. Fertilizer restores nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. Those are the main ingredients in synthetic fertilizers. Natural fertilizer like compost tea also contains nutrients like iron and zinc that are required by trees in smaller quantities. They are slower-releasing than synthetic fertilizers and help improve your yard’s soil structure.
Clean up and recover from winter
The freeze-thaw cycles and ice in the GTA this winter have been especially tough on hedges and shrubs. Cedars, yews, and junipers are a few of the plants that have been bent all sorts of ways by ice and wind. Fertilizing can help strengthen a tree by improving its health ahead of the growing season.
If your tree has suffered damage from winter weather or salt damage, fertilizer will help it grow back stronger this summer. It will also help trees that had insect or pest damage in the previous season.
More beautiful, healthier trees for the season
When your tree gets fertilizer, it helps your tree with new growth. Your tree should grow healthy new buds, leaves, or needles. With restored nutrients, you should also see an improvement in colour. That may mean bigger, greener leaves or branches.
If you have a tree that’s been suffering from weak growth, short twigs and branches, fewer leaves or discoloured leaves over the past few summers, fertilizer may be the kick it needs to grow well this summer. We can do soil testing and recommend soil amendments for more specialized solutions as well. With properly fertilized trees and shrubs, your verdant yard will be the envy of all your neighbours!
Help a newer tree settle in
If you have a tree in the first few years of planting, it’s especially important to fertilize. The benefits of fertilizer will help the tree to establish roots and new growth. In urban environments, it’s harder for trees to establish root systems. Fertilizer helps improve the soil around the new tree, making it easier for the tree to settle in.
Fertilizing speeds up canopy growth, letting a new tree establish itself in its environment. A slow-releasing fertilizer like compost tea is an ideal choice for newer trees.
Set your tree up for success this summer
Tree fertilizer is an easy and affordable way to help your trees’ health. We offer pricing that includes all trees, shrubs and woody plants on a property and can often offer a fast quote prior to visiting your home.
Spring is already here, so don’t delay: learn more about our compost tea fertilizer service now!
